


The Many Hats Of Spencer Reid

by sottovoce81



Series: The Informant [1]
Category: Criminal Minds, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Family Secrets, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Spencer Reid knows even more than you think!, Surprise!Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:39:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sottovoce81/pseuds/sottovoce81
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer Reid wears many hats. He is the baby of the BAU team.  The coffee-addict.  The socially awkward young man.  Yet, he is more than that, and they will never know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Many Hats Of Spencer Reid

**Monday Morning: 5:31 am**

Spencer Reid ran his fingers down the page as he quickly took in the report and filed it in his memory for safe keeping. He didn't even have to try to remember the numbers, names, and locations. They would stick with him forever without any effort on his part at all. Some days it was useful having eidetic memory and the ability to read 20,000 words a minute. (Actually, scratch that—it was useful _every_ day.)

Just as he did every other morning, he snuck into Agent Jennifer Jareau's office to look through her possible case-files for the day. She was the one who chose which cases they took, and she always had a stack of possibilities to choose from, sitting on her desk every morning. Not to mention the stacks of files covering almost every other flat surface in her office. He had plenty to look through every morning....

He came in an hour before she arrived to look over the files. Then he snuck out ten minutes before she arrived, so as not to awaken suspicion. After all, what he was doing wasn't _exactly_ legal. It wasn't exactly _illegal_ either, but still...suspicious.

He was halfway through all of the reports on JJ's desk, and she wasn't due to arrive at the office for another twenty-nine minutes. He had plenty of time to finish this and then he would hide out for an hour before getting his morning coffee.

One of the many hats Spencer Reid wore around his team was that of the young caffeine-addicted man who came into the office every morning with a cup of coffee. The team made fun of him for it, saying he was addicted to the stuff and that he wouldn't ever get up in the morning without it. Little did they know, he woke up at 4:00 every morning to get to the office before they arrived. JJ arrived first, at 6:00am. The rest of the team came an hour later. Reid showed up around 7:00am as well, cup (or cups) of coffee in hand.

The truth was, he never left the building after he arrived around 5:00am. When he disappeared from JJ's office ten minutes before she arrived, he went to the shooting range with Agent Barlow. The man was helping him practice with his firearms (and several other choice weapons). If the team were to ever find out Reid arrived early to work every day, he would use Barlow as his excuse. He would play the part of the embarrassed rookie, trying to learn how to shoot a gun straight. (Truth be told, he really was pretty bad with weapons, but he was getting better with Barlow's help.)

One of the other hats Reid wore, though not truly a mask of his character, was that of the socially awkward young man. True, he was awkward in social situations and in meeting new people, but he did have friends outside of the team. Steve Barlow was a good friend. They had known each other for several years, meeting only a month or two after Reid began working for the BAU. In a way, Barlow knew more about him than any of the team members did. The two of them talked a lot during their morning meetings.

The team didn't know about Reid's friendship with Agent Barlow. In fact, he wondered if they even knew the man's full name. He never told them about the morning meetings (for obvious reasons) and Barlow kept it a secret as well. He knew what Reid was really doing every morning before he showed up at the shooting range downstairs.

Reid closed the file, grinning slightly in victory. He stood to slip it under a pile of files sitting on the floor by the desk, knowing JJ had already been through that stack. She wouldn't notice the file missing, hopefully. She had never noticed the other ones he moved before.

Quickly, with a glance at his watch, he sifted through the rest of the new files on her desk, searching for key words. _Unknown cause of death... Animal attacks... Unexplainable crime scenes..._ When he found case-files that were suspicious to him, he moved them from JJ's desktop to a place less likely for them to be noticed. If they turned out to be nothing after a day or two, he went and dug them out again, placing them back at her disposal.

At 5:50am, Reid straightened the files on the desk to look as if he hadn't been there. Then he pushed the desk chair back into its place and hurried from the room. He only barely ducked around the corner before JJ passed by on her way to her office. She was a few minutes early, which happened occasionally. But he hadn't been caught yet, and he wasn't going to be found out now.

Even if he was spotted at the office this early, he wouldn't call upon Barlow. He would just say he couldn't sleep so he came to the office, and that he was on his way to get coffee. He knew he could immediately don a sleepy expression, and rub his eyes a little to make them red. JJ would buy it, just like she had a time or two before.

No one suspected anything less of Reid. He was the baby on the team—the kid they all took care of. Honestly, he didn't really mind it all too much, though it was sometimes annoying. And hey, occasionally, it was completely useful.

Slipping into the elevator, Reid pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number by memory. After the doors had closed, he hit the emergency stop button on the wall.

The voice on the other line picked up with a gruff, _"This had better be good if you're callin' me up this early, ya_ _idjit."_

Reid smiled at the greeting, knowing he wasn't really all that upset. "You've been awake for a good twenty minutes, Bobby. I know you."

The man mumbled something inaudible into the phone with an annoyed tone.

"I got something this morning," Reid told the older man. "It seems interesting to me. Nothing too big, but not something I could just pass over. It actually kind of reminds me of—"

" _You gonna give a monologue first, or you gonna tell me what it is?"_

Reid didn't let the gruff interruption get to him. It was just Bobby's way, especially this early in the morning. "I think I've found a weird case. A man died of some unexplainable brain aneurism. He was found in his bathroom, having bled out from his eyes. It's almost like they dissolved."

Reid waited for the reply, and he wasn't disappointed.

" _Bloody Mary? Are you kidding me, Spencer?"_

If any members of the team had heard this conversation, they would have never understood. None of them knew about this facet of their coworker. Another hat that Spencer Reid wore was that of a hunter's informant. He read through JJ's files to find cases that seemed to leave the authorities with little explanation other than the supernatural. He hid the files from her view and called Bobby Singer to have hunters check it out. Then, if they were solved, he would leave the case-files out of sight, but if the cases turned out to have natural causes, he would put them back on JJ's desk.

"No, it's no joke. It seemed pretty weird to me. I thought you could have someone check it out."

" _Where is it?"_ Reid told the man, and he grunted in acknowledgement. _"The Winchester boys aren't too far from there. I'll have them take a look."_

"Thanks, Bobby. There wasn't anything else in the stack this morning. But by tomorrow, I should have something better for you to go on."

" _Yeah. Thanks for waking me up so early to tell me all about this one,"_ Bobby said drily.

Reid just smiled. "You're welcome. I'll call tomorrow after the next shipment of files."

" _Stay safe, kid. Wouldn't want you to lose your job for something like this. Not that I don't appreciate having an informant with access to FBI case-files..."_

"It's not a problem, Bobby. I never was made to be a hunter, but at least I can help the good guys catch the monsters. If it costs me a slap on the hand, I know I'm saving lives, passing these cases on to you."

" _Don't you ever doubt it,"_ the older man said decisively.

"By the way," Reid said before Bobby could hang up, "I heard about that last case the Winchesters handled. Demon on a plane? How's Dean doing after that whole thing?"

" _Dean? He's fine. Why?"_

Reid smirked at that. "Bobby, he's terrified of flying. Didn't you know that?"

For a moment, there was silence on the line. Then Bobby began to chuckle. _"I knew his voice was a bit shaky when he called me from the airport—but flying? Seriously?"_

Reid laughed. "I'll try not to find any cases dealing with planes anytime soon. Talk to you tomorrow, Bobby."

" _See ya, kid."_

Reid hung up from his daily check-in, and pressed the button on the elevator to start its movement again. Within a few minutes, he was walking down the hallway on the first floor, heading for the shooting range.

Agent Steve Barlow was already there. "You look happy," he commented to Reid with a smile.

Reid just continued to grin. "Bobby just realized Dean's afraid of flying."

Barlow shook his head in amusement. "Bobby's never gonna let that one go. You know that, right?"

Reid shrugged it off, taking the outheld gun from his friend and mentor. "Dean owes me for telling his father about what I did during that werewolf case last year."

Barlow inclined his head at that. "I guess this will help you get even then."

"Or at least help me quit pretending these shooting targets have his face," Reid said with a laugh.

"John's lectures are pretty terrifying," Barlow noted. "I remember this one time, about five years ago, when Sam was still in high school, I was helping the guys look for this ghost down in El Paso..."

So their morning continued as any other, with both of them sharing stories and talking about life as Reid practiced a few shots, and two throws of a small knife. Barlow talked about his side-job of being a hunter, and Reid made literature references and talked about hunts that he had heard of from Bobby.

Spencer Reid had many hats. He was the kid of the team, supposedly having seen less than all of the other members, (though they didn't know how wrong they were). He was the caffeine-addict, showing up every morning with a steaming cup, supposedly having just rolled out of bed and not fully woken up. He was the socially awkward kid with no real friends outside the BAU team.

He was more than that, though. Reid was one of the key informants for hunters across the U.S. Whatever he found, he passed to Bobby, who, with the help of Ellen, Rufus, and sometimes Caleb, spread the word to whomever could take care of the hunt. He was a key player in fighting off the supernatural, though no one at the BAU would have guessed it. This hat was more than well-hidden. Hopefully, none of the members of his team would ever suspect a thing.

Spencer Reid wore many hats. Some were more obvious than others, but others, particularly this one, would never be known be anyone on the BAU team.

When he went upstairs to start his paid work for the day, Morgan made fun of him for having two cups of coffee with him. He asked how Reid could possibly come to work so tired in the mornings when he went to bed no later than 9:30 every night.

Reid just rolled his eyes and pretended to be grouchy from lack of sleep. It wasn't all that difficult either. After all, he had gotten up at 4:00 am that morning to work his unpaid job.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes this 'verse will involve Sam and Dean soon...! This series has been posted on my FFN account for a while, and I am now transitioning it to ao3. The series is still a work-in-progress, but I'm loving the adventure it's taking me on. ;)
> 
> More fics in the 'verse can be found at my old ffn page: fanfiction.net/~sgs09


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